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Trump Participates in a Ceremonial Swearing-In of Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, Feb. 21, 2025

February 21, 2025 · The White House · 0:22:41

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

President Donald Trump participated in the ceremonial swearing-in of Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick in the Oval Office on Feb. 21, 2025, carried on the White House channel (uploaded Feb. 24). The President congratulated Lutnick and his family, calling him one of the most experienced and talented business leaders of the time and a patriot who loves the country.

The President recounted Lutnick’s Cantor Fitzgerald story as he told it: joining the firm in 1983, rising to president and CEO by age 29, and - because he took his son Kyle to school that one morning at his wife’s insistence - surviving September 11, 2001, when the firm’s offices occupied the top floors of the North Tower of the World Trade Center and every employee present that day was lost, as the President recounted it.

Why it matters

The ceremony installs the Commerce Secretary who carries the administration’s tariff and trade portfolio; the President’s 9/11 account of Lutnick’s survival is part of the public record of why he chose him.

Sources: The White House, “President Trump Participates in a Ceremonial Swearing In of Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick” (YouTube, 2025-02-21) - official description and broadcast transcript as aired.